Alan, I should add to my post # 1285 that T will likely procure VoIP-related products from many vendors, both H/W and S/W, for niche and special applications, and for the purposes of maintaining interoperability with its partners and competitors, alike, where necessary. These will be in addition to a select few vendors for T's broader public platform deployments. And we're not talking next month where the the bulk of these are concerned, rather, we're talking about over the next two to three years.
Despite T's commitment to go the way of cable with TCOMA [something that still has to be demonstrated, IMO], T along with the other IXCs will continue to depend heavily on the LECs for a long long while to come. As these former offspring of T begin to deploy their own flavors of VoIP over their own platforms eventually, you could just imagine the formidable tasks that lie ahead with assuring that interoperability is maintained, knowing full well that the IP Dial Tone model will not be as "open" as we'd all like and expect, coming from these folks, since they will attempt to preserve the existing supply chain model for access charges and settlements as long as possible.
Where LEC copper plant is concerned, users at some point will have the choice to either
- go direct to a VoIP/ITSP provider for local as well as LD services over IP backbones through dial in capabilities as they do now, or
- they will also have the option to choose the local operator's genre which, in all likelihood, will include dual capabilities of both the old POTS capabilities, and newer VoIP services, as well as being bundled with old and new LD, and in some cases limited video capabilities, by the time frame we're talking about over the next several years.
I suspect that there will begin to be a difference in the rules governing higher speed DSLs, as compared to the open access model of dial in capabilities available today for V.34/90 applications. I say this because of the audit and accounting capabilities now possible in the DSL platforms being selected by the larger LECs, and the migration of some of them to the full service area network [FSAN] concept. The restrictions implied in the latter option may be fostered by the LEC's adopting these architectural constraints which they may choose to impose on "outsiders" attempting to use the advanced local loop techs (DSLs, in this case) in a way that is more egregious than onto themselves, for voice and other time-sensitive purposes, or possibly even higher speed Internet access, in general.
This, by default, in turn, may force many interstate service providers (including ISPs where voice and other traditional telephony services are concerned) to begin to structure their offerings in a way that FON has proposed its ION offerings, where the higher speed DSL services are concerned.
And by implication this translates to pricing by the megapacket, and pricing by the class of service required by the user. The rules for the constructs of this kind of heterogeneous, anybody-can-play architecture are just now beginning to be understood, and they are daunting to say the least, especially in an environment that derives from, and thrives on, chaos. Creating these platforms in a compliant manner, and building out to meet the new rules of interoperability will not be cheap for the providers, and thus will set the scene for cost-based pricing, and hence the equilibrium needed to ensure that pricing for voice will never be zero in the residential space, when procured by the end user as a stand alone service.
One never knows what the LECs will attempt to make demands on, or get away with, or what really is in the public's interest given the limitations of copper in the last mile. Perhaps governing the flows will prove to be only a prudent artifact of the legacy of the copper plant, until fiber and more robust wireless alternatives become available. After all, it is their wire pairs we're talking about here, and not the public airways.
Just a few thoughts to prime the pump on this lovely Saturday Morning overlooking the Verrazano Bridge, in Bay Ridge, Brooklyn.
Regards, Frank Coluccio |
